MATRIX - A Dossier for Every Person in Utah

jxs2151 writes: "According to the Deseret Morning News former Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt signed Utah's 2.4 million residents up for a pilot program that gathers dossiers on every single man, woman and child and didn't bother to tell anyone. According to the article MATRIX -- Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange '...cross-references government records from both public and private databases, putting together a dossier on individuals for use by law enforcement.' The state's homeland security specialist dismisses concerns: '...any data gleaned for Utah's participation in MATRIX is information already available to law enforcement.' The Utah legislature is trying to figure out how to get the state out of the program but the question is how was the Governor able to enroll the -whole state- without anyone knowing?"

Can I read Darl's?

[Hobbex]

Pretty please?

Lots of cross-referencing to do.

[MisterFancypants]

Considering all the multi-marriage mormons in Utah, they're gonna have their hands full on the database design for this thing.

Thats it...

[Anonymous Coward]

Where's my Tin foil???

Red pill / Blue pill

[egg troll]

Jeez...could they have picked a worse name to have sent the geeks into overdrive than Matrix?

Re:Lots of cross-referencing to do.

[l810c]

I sure hope it's relational. If it's anything like the damn database I'm working with now the Spouse table would contain fields:

Wife1
Wife2
Wife3
Wife4
etc..

Re:Red pill / Blue pill

[PepsiProgrammer]

BIG BROTHER

Re:America: Wake the fuck up!

[kaltkalt]

sorry, we're at war with drugs and terrorism and a few other nouns. freedom and liberty doesn't matter when you are at "war"....

When oh when...

[Unominous Coward]

is somebody going to attach a turbine to George Orwell?

Just think of all the nuclear power stations that could be decommissioned as a result

Re:Private company?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not the only reason to be glad you don't live in Utah.

Re:Can I read Darl's?

[Agent Snith]

Mr. McBride.. welcome back. We've missed you.

Re:Private company?

[kaltkalt]

Hasn't everyone always been glad they don't live in utah?

MATRIX

[Phroggy]

Is it anything like SCMODS?

Re:Lots of cross-referencing to do.

[ilsa]

They will also need fields for multiple relationship codes, such as Wife1/Cousin, or Daughter/Neice. [azcentral.com]

Re:Matrix in Georgia

[andih8u]

ahh, the ol, Clinton strategy eh?

Re:Conspiracy?

[no longer myself]

Sorry... I checked with a dictionary. A conspiracy is the act of secretly planning to do something wrong, especially a wrong against the government. The legal definition is an agreement by two or more persons to act unlawfully.

Since this program is not a secret (as it is on /.), and the people implementing the program are widely believed to be the government, and everything the government does is seen to be legal (even if it isn't), then there is no conspiracy.

It doesn't make it any less disturbing.

Matrix??

[Anonymous Coward]

I was about to post my thoughts about this, but all of a sudden there's this guy with something in his ear named Smith who keeps calling me Anderson...

Re:Weird.

[Anonymous Coward]

I always wondered about that too. Let's face it, the whole mormon religion was created to allow Joseph Smith to screw a bunch of women in the 1800s.

Just Wait

[assassinofdemons]

Just wait till it slips out that the whole country has this "Matrix Database" thing going on. Oops, shouldnt'a said that.... Dubya's gonna kill me xDDD

Re:when governments remove civil liberties

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Not to mention abuse of the DMCA, and any other law they can find.

You misspelled "fund."

Re:Is Florida any better?

[JGski]

> Is Florida any better? Supposedly there's half a dozen spammers in one Florida county alone.

"Nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure"

semi-quote from Aliens [imdb.com] :-)

Re:Acronym

[Kwil]

No... MATIE as in "Aaargh, MATIE! Thar be a treasure fer yon pyrates!"

Re:Lots of cross-referencing to do.

[tweder]

sure I omitted keys, but that's an exercide left to the reader

Oh, c'mon - it's not _THAT_ hard. Exercide implies that doing so will kill me.

Re: Moron about Mormons

[John Biggabooty]

He did a little too much LDS at Berkeley in the 60's.

Apologies to South Park . .

[CleverNickName]

Utah built a thing called MATRIX
Dumb-dumb-dumb-dumb-dummmbbbb

They promise that they won't abuse it
Dumb-dumb-dumb-dumb-dummmbbbb

Re: Moroni about Mormons

[orthogonal]

Mormons claim to be Christians, but their theology, doctrines, practices, and beliefs are not.

My imaginary sky-ghost can beat your imaginary sky-ghost because you deluded heathen don't know that eating shellfish or not mutilating newborn boys makes the sky-ghost really pissy!

Re:Can I read Darl's?

[uncoveror]

Florida? Utah? Who can say where The Matrix really is? Who can say what The Matrix really is?

Re:Lots of cross-referencing to do.

[Dr Damage I]

To make the database even more interesting, the prophet (whoever that happens to be at the moment) can reassign wives at will. If you (assuming you are a guy) get out of line (question the prophet, etc.) then you lose your wives, your house, your kids, your shiny little thrown in heaven...

Sounds more like listening to country music than a database.

Question? What question.....

[ibm1130]

"The Utah legislature is trying to figure out how to get the state out of the program but the question is how was the Governor able to enroll the -whole state- without anyone knowing?"

Well d'uh. Never heard of an opt-out list?

Easy

[4of12]

Before everyone gets all up in arms about this as a potential invasion of privacy I should point out that Utah's social homogeneity meant that only 4 actual dossiers had to be assembled -- everyone else's dossier was a symbolic link to one of those 4.